


i know that he knows, know that she knows

by advantagetexas



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Multi, also this a church siblings au where they actually had a happy childhood for once, kai is smarter than they make her out to be in canon and you can fight me on that one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7447186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advantagetexas/pseuds/advantagetexas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes life really isn’t fair. Sometimes you get stuck in a deadend bartending job in probably the worst Irish pub in the city and are forced to watch the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen in your life get macked on by the guy you’ve been slightly in love with for the past year. On a daily basis. And on top of that, sometimes you get stuck with a stupid nickname like “Sister” because you’re the sister of one of the guys that works at the only other Irish pub in town. Sometimes life sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sister has a slight problem

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkF-JtjXXP4)

Sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes life _really_ isn’t fair. Sometimes you get stuck in a deadend bartending job in probably the worst Irish pub in the city and are forced to watch the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen in your life get macked on by the guy you’ve been slightly in love with for the past year. On a daily basis. And on top of that, sometimes you get stuck with a stupid nickname like “Sister” because you’re the sister of one of the guys that works at the only other Irish pub in town. Sometimes life sucks.

“Hey, earth to Sister,” Tucker says, waving a hand in front of her face from the other side of the bartop and jolting her out of her little unpleasant reverie.

“Hm? Yeah, sorry. Zoned out there for a second. Started thinking about that one cashier at Walgreens again, honestly,” Sister lied effortlessly. It was a learned skill, really. If you seem slightly vapid and out of it, then people learn to underestimate you. Or at least in this case, they stop bothering to find out what you’re really thinking because they think that you aren’t.

“The hot brunette one?”

“Yeah, yeah. Short hair and huge tits,” she says, further clarifying.

“Is that why you two have been picking up so much inane drugstore shit on your way to work recently?” Carolina asks, appearing from seemingly nowhere and draping her arms over Tucker’s shoulders with a playful smile. She actually kinda towers over both of them; Sister actually has to look a full foot up to look her in the eye. Which, honestly she doesn’t do often. Looking at Carolina too long is like looking at the sun, you almost get blinded by how totally hot she is.

“No,” Sister replies, at the same time Tucker guiltily says “yes”. Carolina just laughs and presses a kiss to his temple.

“Guess some things just don’t change, huh?” she says with a chuckle that twists something in Sister’s chest. That’s weird, that usually doesn’t happen. “Anyway, Sister, we were wondering if you wanted to come with us to the fireworks show tomorrow, since the bar is gonna be closed anyway.”

Now, that sounds like an innocent enough question, but Sister sees what she’s really asking. “Hey, do you want to third wheel me and Tucker for a couple hours until you feel bad about yourself and make an excuse to go home?” They’ve tried this same thing before, and they always try to make it seem like it’s _not_ what they’re doing, which is the frustrating part. Like, sometimes they almost feel like real dates, but then she realizes that oh no, wait, Tucker couldn’t have meant anything by loaning her his jacket that one time at the fair like something out of a fucking movie because Carolina is literally right there, talking about something really smart and interesting and Tucker is looking at her like she’s the fucking stars in the sky. Carolina with her fancy Air Force college degree and six pack abs when Sister has…what? A high school diploma that she just barely scraped together and a face that half the time she swears is a monster looking back at her in the mirror. She’s better for him anyway, but goddamnit, she wished Carolina would stop rubbing it in her face all the time by inviting her out like this.

“Nah, I’ve got some stuff to do at home. Why don’t you ask Church, I’m sure he’d love to go,” Sister replies, trying to sound as nice as possible. Still, something in Carolina’s face changes into almost…disappointment, maybe? Weird.

“Oh, um, okay, no problem. I guess we’ll just go alone then, since trying to get Church to go anywhere that isn’t straight to work is a fucking nightmare, and Caboose _is_ a fucking nightmare, and Wash is, well…” she trails off.

“An asshole?” Tucker offers, which makes Carolina laugh again.

“Pretty much. I was trying to be nice about it, though.”

“Nah, fuck that guy. And not even in a _fuck_ that guy way.”

\/

Sister wakes up to a text message alert blinking on her phone, which is nothing new. She’s actually kinda surprised to see that it’s not from the Walgreens clerk (who she’d hooked up with yesterday) but actually from Carolina.

‘Lina: Hey, do you want to see a movie later?

‘Lina: Tucker has to help Church move or something today, so I’ve got a ticket and no one to go with, & I figured I’d ask.

Kai: yeah sure

Kai: for what movie?

‘Lina: The new Terminator thing?

‘Lina: It’s supposed to be garbage, but I figure even if it’s bad it’ll probably still be good.

\/

Sister showed up to the theater a few minutes earlier than she probably was supposed to, and yet, there was Carolina, leaning against a wall outside and looking like a goddamn goddess even in a sweatshirt and yoga pants. Thank god for yoga pants, though, like, honestly.

“Hey-o,” Sister says, and Carolina jumps a little, almost dropping her phone.

“Oh geez, didn’t realize you were here,” she says sheepishly, pushing a loose bit of her hair behind her ear and blushing. God, that was actually really adorable.

“I mean, I wasn’t trying to be quiet.”

“Well, yeah, but I was distracted! Tucker keeps texting me about how annoying it is to help Wash move.”

“I thought you said he was helping _Church_ move,” Sister asks, actually kinda confused. Something just doesn’t seem right here…

“No, yeah, they’re uh, moving in…together?” Carolina says with a slightly strained smile.

“Yikes, that sounds like a catastrophe in the making. Probably a bigger catastrophe than this movie we’re seeing,” Sister segues, and Carolina almost sighs with relief. God, she was being really weird today, what was up with her?

The next few hours are…weird, to say the least. If she didn’t know any better, Kai would call it a date, but she does know better, so she knows that that can’t be it. And yet, all the motions are there. The “oh, this theater is pretty cold, do you want to borrow my sweatshirt?”, the “don’t worry about paying for anything, I’m buying today”, even the classic yawn and stretch move that only gets used by nervous middle schoolers and apparently retired fighter pilots.

“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Sister says as they leave the theater, blocking her eyes to keep the harsh sun out of them.

“Yeah, it wasn’t so bad. Kinda cool, actually,” Carolina agrees.

“Oh, I should give this back…” Sister says, remembering that the huge jacket she’s wearing isn’t hers, and making a move to take it off. Carolina just puts a hand on her shoulder, though, and she pauses for a second.

“Nah, you keep it. It looks cuter on you than it does on me, anyway,” she says with a laugh that makes her whole face light up. That…god, that was so cute, how does she keep _doing_ that? “I’ll see you at work tomorrow, right, Kai?”

Well, that’s it. That’s all it really takes. Hearing her real name in the voice of literal angel from heaven Carolina Marie Church makes her heart start to go haywire. Which makes things…complicated. To say the least. Because now not only was she majorly in love with half of an unobtainable, out of her league couple, she was in love with _both_ halves. Good going, Sis.

“Y-yeah, I’ll be there!” she mumbles, before giving an awkward wave and walking as fast as her legs would carry her without looking like she was actively trying to run away.


	2. problem solved

“They’re a bisexual person’s worst nightmare,” Sister complains, laying back on the sofa with one foot up on the coffee table. Simmons knocks her foot off the table as he passes by with a pointed look, before sinking into one of Grif’s oversized recliners that he probably found on a street corner somewhere. They certainly looked like he did.

“And you’re telling me this…why, exactly?”

“Because I give you advice about how to talk to girls all the time-“

“Okay, that’s not a fair thing to hold against me, seeing as how it took me literally 12 years to be able to talk to you without wanting to die,” Simmons complains. Kai just shoots him a look and he sighs to himself.

“-and I figure maybe you might be able to return the favor?”

“I mean, I really don’t know what you want me to say. It’s obvious that you have a thing for both of them –I have no idea why you even like Tucker, to be quite honest, like, have you seen Carolina recently?” Kai shoots him another pointed look and he puts his hands up in capitulation. “Alright, alright. But seriously, Kai, it sounds like they’re trying to date you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean they’re trying to date you. What part about that is confusing?”

“The part where they’re dating each other already. Just because I’m bi and like to sleep around a little…okay, maybe a lot, doesn’t mean I’m up for whatever weird swinger stuff they’re into. I mean…maybe. Under the right circumstances.”

“Ugh, didn’t need to know that, first of all. Second of all, I don’t think that’s quite it either. I think your best bet is to just ask them straight out about it.”

“Uh-huh, yeah, that’s a great idea, I’ll absolutely do that,” Sister replies sarcastically.

“Hey, you asked me for what I think and that’s it. I’m also not exactly sure how you got in here, either, since I’m pretty sure I didn’t let you in and Grif isn’t even home right now, so that’s slightly worrying and might have affected my reasoning a little bit.”

\/

“Hey, Kai,” Tucker says nonchalantly, walking into the storage room while she was trying to organize the new shipment of vodka they’d just gotten. Which was actually much harder than it looked, since that meant also organizing the entire rest of the storage room. She sighed to herself at the question she knew was inevitably coming.

“Is everything okay? I mean, I haven’t seen you in a couple days except at work, and even then I barely see you. I mean, are you…did I do something wrong?” Sister sighs to herself, straightening up and dusting her hands off on her shorts before crossing her arms over her chest. Which, admittedly might have been a mistake in a low cut top, but oh well.

“No, I just…it’s nothing,” she says, shaking her head and doubling back on her answer.

“Nah dude, if something’s bothering you then you have to let me know. I mean, I know I can be kindof a dick sometimes, but like…” he trails off, not really having a way to finish that sentence.

“Okay, you really want to know what’s bothering me?” she says, taking a step forward and poking a finger into Tucker’s chest angrily, “What’s bothering me is that you and Carolina are so goddamn weird! Like, one day you’re asking me to thirdwheel all your dates, and then the next Carolina’s trying to put the moves on me at the movies, and then the _next_ day you guys are being disgustingly in love in the middle of the bar again! I just don’t understand!”

“Thirdwheel our…wait, no, that’s-“

“I mean, like, I get it,” Kai continues, just talking over him before he can say anything else, “I’m not as pretty as her, or as smart, and I’m not _you_ , but goddamnit, that doesn’t just give you the right to try to pull this shit all the time!”

“Kai, we’ve been trying to date you for like, 3 months!” Tucker finally yells, gesturing wildly with one hand and accidentally smacking into one of the shelves.

“…what?”

“Yeah, like, 5 months after you started working here Carolina and I kinda had this, ugh, I dunno, this moment?” Tucker says with a sigh, sitting down on one of the stacks of plastic crates in the small storage room. “Where we were both like, ‘hey, Kai is actually really hot, right?’ and then like, 3 months after that we had another one where it was like, ‘oh fuck, Kai is actually really fucking adorable and nice and oh fuck, I think I’m in love with her?’ and for a while we just…fuck, I dunno, we just didn’t deal with it. It’s kinda awkward to talk about, you know? And…and I dunno, I guess we both just took a fuck it adjustment at some point and just got sloshed in the back office and just talked about it.”

“So you…you actually have been trying to date me? Like, together?”

“Yeah. It’s not as easy as the internet makes it sound sometimes. Like, I thought we were at least kinda getting the message across, but I guess not? Whatever, it’s fine.” Kai puts a hand on his arm, then hesitates and pulls it back. It’s not that she doesn’t want to believe it, it just seems too good to be true. At that minute, the door swings open and Carolina pokes her head into the room.

“Oh, hey. I thought you were-“

“Carolina, she didn’t know,” Tucker says, and the smile is instantly gone from her face. She takes a tentative step forward, but then thinks better of it and steps back. The door swings open on its own, in the split second of silence and inaction, it slams against the wall with a harsh sound. Kai goes and wraps her arms around Carolina in a tight hug, resting her head on her chest, admittedly with a little difficulty. Carolina tenses up, just for a second, before relaxing into it, pressing a kiss into the top of Kai’s head. Kai just reaches up and grabs her lapels, bringing Carolina down to her level and smashing their lips together.

“Okay, I’m not gonna lie, that’s actually really hot,” Tucker says, before Kai pulls him over too, the tiny storage room actually being a good thing for once.

\/

“I just want you all to know that I hate you. I hate you so much,” Church says, walking up to the bar. “You two,” he says, pointing at Kai and Tucker, who were in the middle of mixing a new type of drink, “I expected this from, but Carolina, I honestly expected better from you.”

“Okay, _dad_ , what did I do this time?”

“There’s a pair of underwear on the ceiling fan in the storage room. On the _ceiling fan._ What the fuck. You couldn’t pay me enough to move them, and I’m not sure whose they are, but they need to be gone by the time I’m back from lunch or I’m quitting,” Church says, as if it’s an ultimatum, before flipping all three of them off an heading for the door.

“You’re just mad ‘cause you can’t get any, killjoy!” Kai yells after him, which makes both her and Tucker dissolve into laughter. Carolina just smiles and sighs to herself.

“You’re both such idiots…but you’re _my_ idiots.”

**Author's Note:**

> listen, im confiscating Sister from the rvb writing staff. they can have her back when they learn to treat her like the princess she deserves to be treated as and until then she's mine, her bedtime is never and she gets all the character development she wants. also its 3am when im posting this, so these notes are probably really fucking stupid


End file.
